What is the Metaverse?

A game? A social media platform? A cryptocurrency? Virtual reality? Web 3.0?

The metaverse means several things to several people; and that is because it is not a single tool, device, experience, or even a single platform.

A Definition

The Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.

Matthew Ball, venture capitalist and author of the Metaverse Primer

A comprehension of the metaverse augurs the appreciation of the constituent components and bit of history.

History

The idea of virtual worlds and the Metaverse isn’t new. It’s just that now we have most of the technology to make it happen.

The first graphical virtual world, known as Habitat, was launched on the Commodore 64 in 1985 by Lucasfilm Games. Second Life has been the leader in virtual world platforms that let people make avatars and have a second life online since it started in 2003.

Over the decades, numerous developments including smartphones, cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers, Virtual reality hardware, online multi-player platforms have been made.

These are the foundations of the Metaverse of tomorrow.

So, when Sir Tim Berners-Lee auctioned the original source code for the world wide web for charity in June 2021, it was only fitting that it was sold as a non-fungible token (NFT).